{pic by luna715}

Judging from the signs and slogans which are so often on display during “tea parties,” “9-12” protests, and other tawdry public gatherings of the Radical Right, there seems to be a lot of confusion within the United States about the meaning of the word “socialism.” As described by the political shock jocks of Talk Radio and Fox News, “socialism” is a dictatorial, freedom-hating ideology characteristic of the Obama administration, North Korea, Nazi Germany, and France. If this seems to cast a nonsensically wide net, it is because Right Wing demagogues and their thoughtless minions tend to use the term “socialism” as an expression of emotion rather than an intellectual concept… somewhat akin to yelling “fuck you!” If, for whatever reason, you don’t like someone—because he or she is too “liberal” or spendthrift or dark-skinned or well-spoken for your taste—then you simply yell “socialist!” as a means of conveying both your anger and your ignorance.

Of course, anyone who has bothered to do any reading about socialism knows that it is an inherently democratic ideology which bears little resemblance to the ego-maniacal authoritarianism of Stalin or Pol Pot. For instance, The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels describes the revolutionary struggle of the working class as “the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” Even the politically bland Columbia Encylopedia makes clear that socialism is about “cooperation and social service”—in contrast to capitalism’s emphasis upon “competition and profit.”

From a capitalist perspective, the problem with socialist ideology is not that it is insufficiently democratic, but that it is a little too democratic. Socialism calls for real democracy in which people can exert control over the political and economic forces that impact their lives. But modern capitalist mythology depends on the fiction that it is possible to have political democracy and obscene levels of economic inequality at the same time. Even though most people would admit that billionaires like Rupert Murdoch have far more political power than dishwashers and janitors, we are all supposed to pretend that, because Rupert casts only a single vote on election day—just like us—his vast investment portfolio and media empire are politically irrelevant. However, a malcontent socialist might ask how it’s possible to have true democracy when one person’s private property (Rupert’s News Corp.) is another person’s means of survival (working as a janitor for News Corp.)—or how that janitor’s single vote on election day stacks up against Rupert’s unparalleled access to elected officials thanks to his billions, or his ability to single-handedly underwrite political campaigns with his billions, or his power to shape all manner of political and policy debates through his personal control of national media outlets.

Needless to say, these are rather heady concepts which fall far beyond the intellectual grasp of the average Glenn Beck fan or Rush Limbaugh listener. More often than not these days, the Right-Wing charge of “socialism” is directed at particular legislative initiatives which emanate from the Obama administration—like health care reform that could conceivably expand the availability of health care. Right Wingers are particularly worried that the United States might one day end up with a form of national health insurance that resembles that of {gasp!} France, where people live longer and suffer fewer preventable deaths despite lower per-capita health care expenditures. Of course, the United States already has a form of national health insurance for old people (Medicare), not to mention national retirement benefits for old people (Social Security), so one might ask why the Right Wingers aren’t calling for an end to those seemingly “socialist” programs as well. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that many of the opponents of health care reform are themselves old people who are dependent upon Medicare and Social Security.

At any rate, the convoluted mis-understanding of the term “socialism” which is so often on display in Right Wing circles was captured perfectly in one of the year’s most amusing Right Wing protest signs: “Don’t steal from Medicare to support socialized medicine.” {Sigh.…}

{pic by Big Dubya}

Now, I don’t know much about what you might call “knowledge.” In fact, it’s probably safe to say that I know less than nothing when it comes to history, politics, economics, science, and all those other fancy subjects that liberal university-type people think are so important. But one thing I do know is that this Obama administration and this Democrat Congress are socialist. It’s not that I really know what the word “socialism” means, mind you. I mean, I know it’s like what they have in China and Russia and Cuba and places like that. It’s kind of like when a Big Government takes your money and spreads it around to everyone—sort of like the Feds do with Medicare and Social Security, except that I like my Medicare and Social Security, so don’t mess with them. But I don’t want anything else like Medicare and Social Security because that would just be too socialistical. I’d be against Medicare and Social Security, too, if we didn’t already have them and I didn’t already like having them…

But that’s not the point. The point is that people on the T.V. and the radio like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter tell me that Obama and the Democrats are socialist, and I believe them. It’s kind of like accepting that my 1978 edition of the New International Version of the English translation of the Bible is the Word of God. It’s something you just have to take on faith, and asking for proof kind of ruins the whole thing. I mean, demanding “proof” that the Bible is the Word of God is pretty much proof that you’re an atheist, right? So demanding proof that Rush and Glenn and Ann are telling the truth about Obama being a socialist is pretty much proof that you’re a socialist.

I just know what I know, you know?

I am brimming over with ill-defined pride and faux patriotism—and nothing you say could ever change my mind.

I am an All-American Fool.

{pic by luna715}

The idea of secession from the United States is often bandied about in Far Right circles as if it were the dire Nuclear Option within the conservative political arsenal. Just last week, on September 4, conservative economist Walter E. Williams broached the topic on the Rush Limbaugh Show. Williams—an occasional fill-in and hand puppet for the Dark Lord himself—was discussing the not-quite-mass movement for secession that is afoot in New Hampshire and opined that secession didn’t work “last time” (that unpleasant Civil War incident), but it did work “the first time in 1776,” and it would be nice to “see whether we could break the tie” and “have a sovereign nation.” Similarly, Texas Governor Rick Perry, appealing to the nebulous Right Wing populist rage at one of the Fox News “Tea Parties” last April, floated the possibility of secession “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people” (apparently, he forgot which party won and which party lost in the elections last November). And there is no shortage of neo-Confederate hate groups, such as the League of the South, which are devoted to the idea of secession as a means of escaping federal intrusion upon the God-given right of states to enslave human beings for fun and profit.

Implicit in Right Wing chatter about secession is the assumption that it somehow constitutes a “threat”; that the inhabitants of a newly shrunk United States would bemoan the day they lost the invaluable contributions which the Far Right makes to Human Progress. But let us consider what would actually be “lost” were the United States of America (U.S.A.) to jettison the original 11 members of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.): Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Even a cursory examination of available data indicates that the U.S.A. might benefit enormously from a southern-style divorce of this kind.

For instance, at a time when reigning in health care expenditures is a top priority for nearly every policymaker in the country, the Secession Option makes fiscal sense. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that the U.S.A. spends more that $75 billion on obesity-related medical expenditures each year, and the C.S.A. states account for roughly 30% (or $22.3 billion) of that total. In fact, the C.S.A. states have some of the highest rates of obesity in the nation. Based on my own calculations using the CDC’s obesity-rate data for each state and the U.S. Census Bureau’s state-population totals from the 2007 American Community Survey, I estimate that secession would permit the U.S.A. to shed roughly 26 million medically expensive obese individuals, which would reduce the size of the obese population in the country by one-third.

However, the benefits of secession go far beyond the fiscal advantages of shedding excess baggage from the health care system. Allowing the C.S.A. states to secede would eliminate nine of the 22 “red” states that swung Republican in the 2008 election. More precisely, based on popular-vote totals compiled by the U.S. Electoral College, secession would remove 36% (or 21.6 million) of those U.S. voters who thought that a McCain-Palin administration would have made a nice sequel to eight years of Bush-Cheney.

Shedding surplus Republicans from the U.S.A. would be advantageous not only from a partisan political perspective, but would vastly improve the general state of knowledge among the reduced U.S. population. The base of the Republican Party consists of Evangelical Protestants, a rather Taliban-esque group that tends to frown upon Enlightenment-era ideals such as scientific discovery and the use of human reason. For instance, 65% of Evangelical Protestants believe that all forms of life have always existed in their present form ever since a magical Supreme Being zapped them into existence—the fossil record and genetic mutation be damned. Not surprisingly, Evangelical Protestants are heavily concentrated in the C.S.A. states. Based on state-level estimates of religious affiliation from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and adult-population totals reported for each state by the 2007 American Community Survey, I conclude that secession would remove 44% (or 25.5 million) of all Evangelical Protestants from the U.S.A.

In short, the secession of the C.S.A. states might be just the sort of fiscal, social, and intellectual stimulus that the U.S.A. needs to move forward into the 21st century rather than backward into the Middle Ages. There is an apocryphal quote that is widely attributed to Miriam “Ma” Ferguson (Governor of Texas, 1925-1927 and 1933-1935), and is said to have been uttered in response to a question about the use of the Spanish language in Texas schools: “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas schoolchildren.” I think that pretty much says it all.

With flu season nearly upon us, the attention of public-health experts and hypochondriacs is turning to the potential perils of the H1N1 pandemic. But there is another, far more insidious disease in our midst: Demagogic Fever. We have grown accustomed to witnessing the maniacal rants and incoherent ramblings of high-profile individuals who suffer from this affliction and are therefore employed by light-weight infotainment outlets such as Premiere Radio Networks (Rush Limbaugh), Fox News (Glenn Beck), and CNN (Lou Dobbs). But it would behoove us to keep in mind that there are quite a few infected men and women who hold positions of power in the U.S. Congress. Given that Demagogic Fever is characterized by a dangerous degree of delusion, this is a matter of grave concern not only to public health, but to national security as well. Witness for yourself the degree to which the intellectual faculties of some of our nation’s lawmakers have been impaired by this debilitating ailment:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who currently occupies a seat in the House Financial Services Committee, believes that “global warming” cannot be real because it involves a warm-and-fuzzy atmospheric gas known as “carbon dioxide,” which not only “is a natural byproduct of nature,” but “occurs in earth” and is essential even for the life of “the fowl that flies in the air”:

In a related vein, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, believes that “global warming” is a hoax perpetrated by a Leftist cabal that includes Hollywood Elitists, the United Nations, and The Weather Channel:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee, believes that precisely 17 of his fellow congressional representatives are openly socialist, although it remains unclear who they are or if Bachus actually knows what the term “socialism” means:

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who fills a chair in the House Rules Committee, believes—somewhat defensively, perhaps, given her advanced age—that the health-care reform legislation slowly making its way through Congress would allow the federal government to put senior citizens to death (although there does not appear to be a Euthanasia provision in any of the bills currently circulating):

It should give one pause to realize that these individuals, who are clearly not in their right mind, possess some degree of power in shaping the fate of the United States. More alarming still is the fact that a majority of the electorate in the locales from whence they come are equally ill. It may be time to start spiking the nation’s drinking water with Zyprexa.

{pic by Burns!}

It is by no means clear when a word becomes violent. Murkier still is the question of when a word becomes so violent that the person who stands behind it deserves imprisonment or some lesser form of legal censure. And trying to decide what degree of responsibility is borne by a speaker of violent words for the violence committed by others who were inspired by those words tends to be a circular exercise in ethical futility.

The many gradations of meaning and intent that transform Free Speech into Hate Speech into Verbal Violence have been on prominent display over the past month or so as the Radical Right—already apoplectic over the ascendancy of dark-hued liberalism in the nation’s Capitol—has cloaked itself in health-care drag and infested the Town Hall Meetings that congressional representatives feel inexplicably obliged to conduct during their August recess. Much of the Right Wing’s theatrics in this regard have been farcically delusional in nature. Drones who receive their marching orders from intellectual luminaries such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck parrot patently absurd talking points about Fascism, Socialism, and “death panels” while parading around with pictures of Barack Obama sporting a Hitler-esque mustache. During a recent Town Hall Meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Representative Barney Frank (D-4th/Mass.), Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, illustrated quite brilliantly just how seriously these kinds of histrionics should not be taken based on their merits (or lack thereof).

Unfortunately, Hate Speech is not all fun and games in which the intellectual deficiencies or mental instabilities of Right Wingers can be mocked for sport. Hate Speech can be deadly in its consequences, unintended or otherwise. For instance, Washington Monthly notes that Pittsburgh cop-killer Richard Poplawski suckled at the ideological teats of Fox News and the National Rifle Association in feeding his fantasies that the Obama administration was about to seize his beloved weapons. And the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights points out that the anti-immigrant rhetoric spouted by “high profile national media personalities” such as Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage “correlates closely with the increase in hate crimes against Hispanics.” Of course, correlation does not prove causality—and blaming the demagoguery of Dobbs and Savage for anti-Latino hate crimes is akin to blaming Marilyn Manson for the Columbine massacre because shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris liked his songs.

Regardless of the precise relationship between Hate Speech by one person and violent acts committed by another, the question remains of what one can actually do about it. In Europe and Canada, for instance, certain forms of public hate speech are simply illegal—although these laws have not exactly succeeded in eradicating either hate crimes or Right Wing hate groups. In the United States, on the other hand, freedom of speech as encoded in the First Amendment to the Constitution is generally held in high regard; and for good reason. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) succinctly notes: “History teaches that the first target of government repression is never the last.” In other words, let the government ban the speech of your enemy and it may ban your speech next. It is for that reason that the ACLU sometimes finds itself in the uncomfortable position of defending the free-speech rights of utterly vile hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan—and opposing progressive students who seek to ban Right Wing hate speech on campus. As the ACLU argues rather persuasively: “Where racist, sexist and homophobic speech is concerned, the ACLU believes that more speech—not less—is the best revenge.…when hate is out in the open, people can see the problem.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean one must sit back and do nothing when mainstream media “commentators” who are bankrolled by major corporations spew forth hate rhetoric day after day. For instance, the Color of Change campaign seems to be having some success in persuading advertisers to pull their ads from Glenn Beck’s show. Ultimately, however, peddlers of hate like Beck will fade away only when they no longer have a mass audience dumb enough to believe their lies. Darkness flourishes where the bulbs are dimmest. Conservative ideology tends to be a refuge for the ignorant… it is people who don’t know what “socialism” actually is who are the most likely to believe that the centrist Obama administration is “socialist.” For better or worse, an educated populace is the only viable, long-term solution to the social problems and quandaries posed by Hate Speech and Verbal Violence.

{pic by stallio}

People who are accustomed to thinking for themselves often experience confusion upon visiting the virtual salons in which Arch-Conservatives share their erudite observations concerning history, science, and current affairs. This confusion stems in large part from the vastly different evidentiary standards by which Far-Right Wingers tend to evaluate different beliefs. Some beliefs require no supporting evidence at all to be accepted as Truth in the Uber-Conservative Consciousness. But there are other beliefs for which no amount of evidence can ever suffice. For instance, no evidence is necessary to support the belief that Barack Obama is an illegal Kenyan immigrant born in Mombasa. But no amount of evidence is sufficient to support the belief that Obama is a U.S. citizen born in Honolulu.

There are no hard and fast rules among Super Conservatives as to when a belief requires evidence and when it doesn’t. Such knowledge is more of an art than a science and requires experience to master. For those readers unfamiliar with the unpredictable empirical twists and turns of the Paleoconservative Worldview, here is a handy topical guide for distinguishing Fact-Free Truth from Evidence-Based Heresy:

Cosmology

Fact-Free Truth: A magical and invisible Supreme Being created the universe about 6,000 years ago.

Evidence-Based Heresy: The universe as we know it came into being 12-14 billion years ago with an event called the “Big Bang.”

Biology

Fact-Free Truth: The magical and invisible Supreme Being created all forms of Life just as they exist today.

Evidence-Based Heresy: All forms of life change over time through the interplay of genetic mutation and natural selection; a process known as “evolution.”

History

Fact-Free Truth: The stories of The Bible tell the literal truth about the history of Humankind.

Evidence-Based Heresy: The stories of The Bible are parables created before the existence of a clearly defined “non-fiction” genre in literature.

Climatology

Fact-Free Truth: “Global warming” is a hoax perpetrated by a vast international conspiracy designed to undermine U.S. sovereignty in order to create Word Government.

Evidence-Based Heresy: Emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” from industrial processes are causing the average temperature of the earth to rise over time.

Politics

Fact-Free Truth: The Obama administration is “socialist.”

Evidence-Based Heresy: The Obama administration is “centrist Democrat” by U.S. political standards (which qualifies as “moderate conservative” by global political standards) and does not come close to fitting the actual definition of “socialism.”

Patriotism

Fact-Free Truth: The United States of America is the greatest nation that has ever existed or ever will exist and is uniquely favored by the magical and invisible Supreme Being.

Evidence-Based Heresy: The United States of America is number 15 on the Human Development Index of nations as ranked by average health, knowledge, and standard of living—right after Iceland, Norway, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Finland, Denmark, and Austria.

Sexuality

Fact-Free Truth: Homosexuals choose a deviant and hedonistic “life style” that is frowned up by the magical and invisible Supreme Being.

Evidence-Based Heresy: Homosexuals are attracted to members of the same sex.

Sex

Fact-Free Truth: Sex outside of marriage is wrong.

Evidence-Based Heresy: Sex outside of marriage is fun.

{pic by TCM Hitchhiker}

As difficult as it might be to believe, there is a healthcare crisis in the United States that has gone largely unnoticed. Although the negotiations now taking place in the U.S. Congress over healthcare reform have focused a great deal of public attention on the many failings of the U.S. healthcare system, this particular health crisis remains largely invisible to policymakers and media commentators. It is a crisis of mental health, and it seems to be growing ever more severe within Right Wing political circles. From the plebeian mosh pit of Talk Radio to the rarefied Halls of Congress, conservatives unable to come to terms psychologically with the election of President Barack Obama are becoming unhinged; their minds consumed by paranoid delusions which can only be described, clinically speaking, as psychotic.

Lest the reader think I merely jest, the National Institute of Mental Health defines “delusions” as manifested in “schizophrenia” as “false personal beliefs that are not part of the person’s culture and do not change, even when other people present proof that the beliefs are not true or logical.” Furthermore, individuals suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia can believe that others are deliberately cheating, harassing, poisoning, spying upon, or plotting against them or the people they care about. These beliefs are called delusions of persecution.”

Now, consider the persistent claims of so-called “Birthers” such as G. Gordon Liddy and Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), who harbor the belief that Obama is not actually a native-born U.S. citizen and is therefore ineligible to serve as President. With Lou Dobbs generously providing a high-profile venue for the airing of these dark fantasies, the Birthers insist that Obama was born not in Hawaii, but in Kenya, and that there is a vast conspiracy afoot to hide this from a gullible American public. And no amount of evidence to the contrary will change their minds.

Or consider the claims of Healthcare Denialists such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) that there is not actually a healthcare crisis in the United States. There is, of course, an abundance of evidence that tens of millions of Americans do not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance, cannot afford to buy health insurance or pay for healthcare out-of-pocket, and forgo medical treatment as a result. Yet the Healthcare Denialists persist in their belief that the notion of a “healthcare crisis” is simply an alarmist ploy by Leftists intent on a socialistic federal takeover of the private U.S. healthcare system.

Finally, consider Climate Denialists such as George Will, Pat Buchanan, and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), who claim that global warming is not occurring. Despite the weight of the scientific evidence in this regard, the Climate Denialists insist that the very idea of “global warming” was concocted as part of a shadow-strewn conspiracy to siphon away the political and economic sovereignty of the United States and transfer it to a nebulous World Government.

Although it is easy to become angry at the inflammatory ramblings of deluded souls such as these, they warrant our compassion—not our hate. In the spirit of Hippocrates, we should want, and work towards, their recovery from the psychosis that afflicts them. As the National Institute of Mental Health has also pointed out, the atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon that were developed in the 1990s have proven highly effective in treating the psychotic symptoms from which far too many members of the Republican Caucus and the Fox News staff suffer. With the right medications, and intensive therapy, even Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh could “improve enough to lead independent, satisfying lives.”

{pic by Sorcyress}

I am the wet dream of conservative nightmares…

Like our foreign-born President, Barack Obama bin Laden, I am a radical militant of both the Islamic and Socialist varieties. This means that I hate anyone who doesn’t believe in Allah because I’m a devout Muslim, and I hate Muslims because I’m an atheist who doesn’t believe in any god or religion. Presumably, this means I hate myself, which I suppose would explain my fondness for suicide bombings.

I am also a dark-hued racial militant governed by the vagaries of “identity politics,” unless I’m white—in which case I assuage my white guilt by supporting anti-white racial militants and opposing the justifiably white identity politics of pro-white racial militants. It’s all rather complicated, especially since “race” doesn’t really exist.

I am a traitor to my country who wants the U.S. economy to collapse into chaos. But I don’t want it to collapse into too much chaos, because I also want to nationalize it. Let’s say that I want the economy to collapse into just enough chaos to do away with free enterprise and private property rights, but then to stop collapsing just before it becomes so chaotic that there’s nothing left for the government to commandeer. It’s a very tricky balancing act.

I am an emasculating, lesbian, Femi-Nazi who hates anything with a penis. But I’m also a faggot who positively loves penises, especially for the purpose of sodomy. So I have a rather conflicted sexual identity. No doubt this explains my fondness for transvestitism, transsexualism, and hermaphroditism.

I am a farcical caricature of a delusional stereotype.

{pic by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com}

Many of the Republican Party’s more Paleolithic conservatives viewed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court as an opportunity to re-inspire their demoralized ranks by invoking the rhetoric of the so-called “Culture Wars.” If there’s anything worse than having some over-educated liberal black dude in the White House for the next few years, it’s the prospect of having some over-educated liberal Latina chick on the Supreme Court for the next few decades. From said judicial perch, there is little doubt that this woman will seek to undermine the Biblically mandated right of all white-skinned anti-abortion extremists to own automatic weapons. And that’s why the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee—which conducts the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees—tried without success to persuade her to admit her sinister views about gun control, affirmative action, and the right to choose.

Alas, there was never much doubt that Sotomayor would ultimately be confirmed by the Democratic controlled Senate, so the Culture Warriors had to settle for the confirmation-hearing histrionics of the “Operation Rescue” anti-choice theater troupe—and the dubious star power of Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade fame, who went on to become a born-again anti-choice dim-wit.

Of course, President Obama and his advisers tend to eschew culture-war rhetoric in favor of a more pragmatic political centrism that pays homage to unity and common purpose. To which I respond, “fuck that!” If the Right Wing wants Culture Wars, then I say we follow the prescient advice of former President George W. Bush: “bring ‘em on.” The moralistic debates that constitute the Culture Wars are the Right Wing’s to lose. Fortunately for the human species, education and demographics are likely to take Paleo-Republicans the way of the dinosaurs in which they don’t believe…

Consider recent polling data from the Pew Research Center, which shows that the Republican Party’s “constituents are aging and do not reflect the growing ethnic and racial diversity of the general public.” Even more to the point, social conservatism seems to be a product of poor education rather than divine enlightenment. According to the Pew survey, “better educated respondents tend to be less conservative than those with less education.” For instance, the respondents most likely to agree with the statement “books that contain dangerous ideas should be banned from public school libraries,” and to worry “that science is going too far and is hurting society rather than helping it,” were those with the least education. Better-educated respondents who were more likely to have actually read books, and to have read about science, were the least likely to be scared of either books or science.

If we invest enough resources in high-quality education that is widely available, and give demographic trends enough time to work their magic, it won’t be long before the remaining Culture Warriors of the Right have become extinct.

{pic by stevegarfield}

Let us hope that Sarah Palin’s erratically graceless exit from the governorship of Alaska does not portend her exit from the national stage of electoral politics. We need her not merely in the same way that any village has a collective psychological need for its idiot, but in a more pragmatic, political sense as well. The woman is beloved by the GOP’s ever-shrinking “base” of angry white Bible Thumpers. In fact, a mind-numbing 84% of white evangelical Republicans profess a favorable view of Palin despite (or, perhaps, because of) her numerous and well-publicized instances of stupidity and dubious judgment. They even kept loving her after she demonstrated her foreign-policy erudition to Katie Couric by explaining that “as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska… It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.” Truly inspiring words to the faithful.

At any rate, if the Republican Party is to assume its rightful place in the U.S. political landscape as a permanent minority party that provides a reliable source of fodder for late-night comedians, it is essential that Palin become the GOP standard-bearer. And, if Palin is to effectively rise to the top of the Republican Party, she must be on the GOP presidential ticket in 2012. But every presidential ticket requires two candidates, so let us hope that another conservative heavy weight can be persuaded to join her. Specifically, I’m thinking of another darling of the Republican base; the jowl-jiggling hero of the 2009 Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual meeting; the man who thinks that both global warming and the health-care crisis are elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by socialist Democrats and liberal media elites; the Right Wing’s favorite pain-killer junkie: Rush Limbaugh.

If ever there were a ticket that could energize the GOP base like no other, and—in the process—alienate most of the Democrats and Independents needed to actually win a presidential election, it’s Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Given Palin’s superior star power and hair styling, she should probably be at the top of the ticket, but that would probably be denounced by Limbaugh and his fans as a Femi-Nazi plot to emasculate the red-blooded American male. Real men are always Tops; never Bottoms. So Limbaugh-Palin 2012 it must be.